The check is in the mail

Today, I got news from CD Baby (the online site for self-distribution of CDs) that sales of The Viper and His Famous Orchestra’s Everything for Everyone have finally topped the $10 mark, thanks to a single purchaser in Urbana, Illinois, who took advantage of the quantity discount and bought two — count ’em — two copies of the CD. This is important, since it’s only after you’ve made at least $10 that CD Baby will actually cut you the check, which they’ll be sending out tomorrow (see my earlier entry: “We’re in the phone book! We’re in the phone book!“)

Woo hoo! Paid gig! And what makes it even cooler is that I’ll now also be getting paid for what apparently are the 10 single-song digital purchases that have made around the world through Apple iTunes, along with iTunes-Europe, iTunes-UK, and even iTunes-NewZealand.

This turns out to be interesting, because it lets me know the songs for which people are willing to shell out their hard-earned kale. “Ukulele Rhythm” is the clear front-runner so far, accounting for a full 40% of all sales (i.e., 4 of the 10!) and showing up on each of global versions of iTunes that I listed above. This means that someone in New Zealand, right now, could be singing “Greb your hemmeh.” After that, it’s “I Left My Liver in Libertyville” with 2 sales, and one each for “Das Kapital” (from iTunes-Europe, of course), “Hey! Rounders,” “Pretty Is as Pretty Does,” and “Rhapsody in Blue.”

I’d be surprised at the relative success of “Ukulele Rhythm,” except for the fact that the title provides a sort of built-in branding for ukulele fetishists of the sort I encountered most recently at the 2008 Mid-Atlantic Ukulele Invitation in Annapolis, Maryland — on which I’ll put a note or two on here tomorrow.

Most of that $19.19, of course, will be plugged right back into getting more stuff out to CD Baby, including taking care of the compulsory licensing notifications and fees I’ll need to take care of to get the earlier, all-cover Viper and His Famous Orchstra EP, A Song for All Seasons, out for distribution. And of course 27.3 cents a piece will be going out to Angie Heaton and the Gershwin estate, for the sales of “Pretty Is as Pretty Does” and “Rhapsody in Blue,” respectively. And if the rest of the orchestra comes sniffing around: hey, I might have to cut them in too.